Trump towers in New York

Donald Trump crushed his rivals in a New York minute on Tuesday, easily defeating Ted Cruz and John Kasich on his home turf and beginning what he hopes is a late surge to the Republican presidential nomination.

Early results showed Trump on track to cross a crucial threshold in the state: 50 percent support. If he clears it, he’ll automatically win a batch of 14 delegates to the Republican National Convention, but it he falls short, Cruz and Kasich may pick off support of their own, which could block Trump from an outright victory.

That lingering subplot could turn a dominant Trump win into a late-night nail-biter, even as champagne corks are flying at the mogul’s victory party in his eponymous tower on Fifth Avenue.

With 53 percent of precincts reporting, Trump was dominating with 61.7 percent of the New York vote, Kasich was running in a distant second with 24 percent, and Cruz was trailing in third with 14.3 percent.

A triumphant Trump proclaimed from Trump Tower on Tuesday night that he will get more delegates from New York “than anybody projected even in their wildest imaginations.”

“This has been an amazing week,” he declared. “We don’t have much of a race anymore.”

Trump added that “Senator Cruz has just about been mathematically eliminated.”

Eighty miles away, appearing at what his team called a “Pennsylvania kickoff event” before the results came in, Cruz barely nodded to the primary. Instead, he shifted his focus to upcoming contests.

“You may have been knocked down, but America has always been best when she’s lying down with her back on the mat and the crowd’s given the final count,” Cruz said. “It is time for us as a nation to get up, to shake it off, and be who we were destined to be.”

Trump’s rivals have spent weeks working to keep the mogul below that 50 percent threshold. As the GOP nomination fight increasingly becomes a seminar in complicated delegate math, limiting Trump’s support on his home turf would amount to a victory of sorts.

Trump’s allies are hopeful that he can score 80 to 85 of New York’s 95 national convention delegates. Hitting that level of dominance will require Trump to hit 50 percent support statewide, as well as cracking 50 percent in nearly all of New York’s 27 congressional districts, a more difficult feat.

New York’s districts vary wildly — from heavily Democratic districts in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx that could turn on just a few hundred Republican votes to GOP-heavy Staten Island, as well as conservative-leaning upstate and on Long Island. Full results from each could take hours to compute.

Trump on Tuesday said it would be a “great tribute” if he’s able to get more than half the vote in New York. He also laid out what would make for a solid delegate haul.

“I think if I got 75 delegates, that would be a considered a great night, maybe I can get more. … I think anything over 70 delegates would be really a great night,” Trump said in an interview with WABC Radio’s “Election Central with Rita Cosby.” He added, “I’ve won the fight, except for the final two. … So we have to finish it off.”

Across-the-board dominance in New York would keep alive Trump’s narrow chance to reach 1,237 delegates and clinch the GOP nomination without a bruising multi-round convention. Cruz has been running the table at lower-profile, local delegate contests in an attempt to stack the convention with loyalists, should it take more than one vote to resolve, so Trump is feverishly working to score a first-ballot victory.

Whether he clears 50 percent or not, the win at home is validating for Trump. The last time the mogul tasted victory in a primary was after his romp in Arizona on March 22. After a brief nod toward party unity, Trump has spent recent weeks in open conflict with Republican leaders around the country, accusing them of rigging the convention process against him.

He’s pointed to Cruz’s dominant performance in delegate battles — especially in states where Trump won big victories and states that chose to hold no presidential nominating contest — to argue that the party’s process undermines the popular will.

The real estate mogul has also been coping with internal turmoil with his campaign operation as he tries to bring more experienced hands on board who have been clashing with his original skeletal staff.

Another shakeup took place this past weekend, when Trump told senior staffers that he wants his recent hires Paul Manafort and Rick Wiley to take the reins in upcoming states.

The personnel changes have been particularly alienating for Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who has proven to be a volatile figure. One of Lewandowski’s loyalists, national field director Stuart Jolly, resigned on Monday amid the dramatic changes.

Manafort and Wiley are expected to be critical figures as Trump tries to ensure that delegates — including the ones he racks up Tuesday night — are loyal to him in a contested convention, which could be a struggle. New York’s convention delegation is chosen by party leaders in each county and congressional district, as well as by members of the New York state GOP. Though Trump has allies and institutional support scattered across the state, party elders and insiders seeking to attend the convention could conflict with his preferred delegate candidates.

None of it matters if Trump clinches the GOP nomination ahead of the convention. And that’s possible if he posts strong finishes in New York and the five states that vote next week — Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware — as well as New Jersey and California in early June.